The Art of Showing Up: How to Be There for Yourself and Your People

by Rachel Wilkerson Miller

There’s not much space for generosity, confidence, or vulnerability when you’re constantly worried about whether you have enough and are enough.

When you are firmly rooted, you can fully stand up for others.

I view personality tests as a tool that helps us understand ourselves and each other a little bit better. And if that’s their purpose, then yes, I’d say they do work. (Or, at least, they can.) Taking personality tests over the years has genuinely made me more self-aware, because reading the different results has helped me name my qualities (good and bad), my needs, and my preferences, and made me realize that some of ways I act or react in certain situations aren’t actually universal. It’s so easy to tell yourself everyone does something until it’s called out as something that’s unique to you (or to a somewhat limited group of people). Of course, no personality test is completely accurate, and many of them are frustratingly black-and-white. But in general, they provide a helpful jumping-off point for self-examination. You might read about “your” personality type and think, That’s not me at all, and have tons of examples to prove it. Or you may know, That used to be me, but I didn’t like that about myself, so I worked really hard to change it. Or you might think, I wish that were me. And that’s all really helpful information to have!

Personality tests create a safe space for naming and sharing needs. And they give us a shared vocabulary that allows us to be better at showing up for each other. Once I’m familiar with my friends’ love languages, for example, I can demonstrate that I care about them way more effectively. Even just having terms like “introvert” and “extrovert” in the public consciousness makes it a little easier for us to be good to each other.

Agreeing to do something you really don’t want to do isn’t necessarily kind; it can actually be pretty selfish.

there are enough cruel people in the world who are more than happy to hurt us; we really don’t need to do that work for them.

my colleague Anna Borges has written,13 instead of asking, “Do I need therapy?” a better question is “How might I benefit from therapy?” Therapy isn’t just for people dealing with trauma or serious mental health issues; you can also talk to a therapist about dating woes, setting boundaries with friends, tension with your parents or siblings, job stress, low-level anxiety or sadness, and pretty much anything else that’s a source of difficulty in your life. And just because you go to therapy once, you aren’t locked into going forever; it can absolutely be a shorter-term deal.

It’s important that your approach to nourishing yourself reflects the current you—not some idealized version of you who goes to the farmers market every weekend, always leaves work at 5:30 (instead of 7:15), and/or is actually just Ina Garten. So put some thought into your present reality: how you actually feel before, during, and after time spent cooking/preparing/procuring food; the role food plays in your social life; how much motivation you have outside of work/school/other obligations; what other circumstances (life, health, etc.) play a role in what and how you eat; what’s working well for you at the moment; and what your biggest barriers to nourishing yourself are (if there are any). Once you better understand your current circumstances you can take better care of the version of yourself you are right now.

Routines and goals are great . . . until they aren’t. There have been many times in my life when working out twice a week would have made me feel a little bit better overall, but because I couldn’t work out five times that week, or because I knew I had a trip or a busy period coming up (meaning I wouldn’t be able to exercise consistently all month) I simply didn’t bother at all. I regret this approach! Now I try to plan less and live more in the present. I ask myself, What can I do this week (or just today) that’ll make me feel better, regardless of what I did last week and what I’ll do next week? And what if that’s all I need to worry about for now?

Now I know—not just intellectually, but in my soul—that the amount of exercise necessary for me to attain basic health benefits is not nearly as hard or as time-consuming or as sweaty as I convinced myself it was. It can be difficult to open yourself up to the possibility of other forms of exercise that make you feel good, that you can love and enjoy, even if they don’t raise your heart rate to a certain level or change your appearance in any way. But discovering those types of exercise can be truly transformative.

Anne Poirier says that body image is a spectrum, and that body neutrality can be seen as a resting place within all the noise—the noise of self-hatred, and the noise of “you need to love yourself.” She says it can be particularly helpful if the idea of loving your body is so far from where you currently are that you can’t really envision ever reaching that point.

Body neutrality invites you to focus on what you can do with your body instead of what it looks like. (And if your body can’t do as much as you’d like it to, or as much as it once did, Poirier suggests celebrating what it can do while also allowing yourself to grieve what it cannot.)

As my colleague Anna Borges has reported, checking boxes when you do something healthy for yourself can be motivating, but the purpose of tracking your habits isn’t really to achieve your goals . . . it’s to be able to see patterns. When everything is in a single place, you can start to make connections between, say, drinking alcohol and feeling sad, or getting migraines and getting your period. A tracker also helps you notice frequency. It’s remarkably easy to tell yourself something isn’t a “serious” problem when you don’t have the data in front of you; documenting your habits gives you a fuller, more accurate picture of yourself and your life.

The tracker should be less about achievement and more about collecting information. Think of it as a tool that can teach you something about yourself and help you take better care of yourself.

Just because we’ve thought of it doesn’t mean we’ve actually fully considered it, or that we’ve made a good-faith attempt to do it. And so often, the reason we aren’t trying it is because the advice feels simple. Yes, we want to feel better, but we also like thinking of ourselves as complicated creatures whose unique problems couldn’t possibly be solved by something as obvious as going to the gym or making a gratitude list every night. We want to believe that our problems are too big for the scientifically backed, tried-and-true, “basic” solutions to fix. Instead of giving the clichéd advice an honest try, we brush past it and seek out alternative options—options that are typically more complex, more expensive, and less tested, but that do have the benefit of being new and fun and exciting. Or, worse, we’ll do nothing. We’ll decide we know more than the experts or the people who have experienced this same thing already, and conclude that we are simply unfixable.

Home means the place where our soul feels that it has found its proper physical container, where, every day, the objects we live amongst quietly remind us of our most authentic commitments and loves.

Going through a difficult time can feel a lot like carrying a stack of delicate china while walking on a tightrope. What you don’t need at that moment is to have to hide how much you are struggling to keep everything from falling out of your arms—or worse, to pretend it’s a breeze. You may not be able to set down the china or step off the tightrope right now, but you can at least admit that what you’re doing is hard.

Don’t Mistake a Level 4 Friend for a Level 9 Friend During our conversation, Shasta Nelson said something I’ve been thinking about ever since. We were talking about the levels of friendship, and I commented that most of us probably don’t have that many friends at a level 9 or 10—like, not that many people would reach that level of intimacy in our lives, right? She replied, “Many of us don’t have anyone up there.” She went on to say that if you don’t have a lot of friends in the top tier, it’s easy to treat level 4 or 5 friends like they are level 9 or 10 friends—because they are your “best” friends, even if they aren’t actually your best friends. It’s truly a bummer not to have someone who feels like Your Person, but trying to fast-track friendship in this way tends to backfire. So before you unload on your friends, it can be worthwhile to take an honest look at the relationship. Does the sharing go both ways? Are you Their Person, too? Or are you vaunting them to a higher level of friendship when it’s not really appropriate or earned?

WHOA this resontes.

A couples therapist once gave me this very good advice: If you’re having an argument or intense conversation, take a break after forty-five minutes. After the forty-five-minute mark, she said, people tend to be too emotionally exhausted to have a productive conversation; a twenty-minute break (at minimum!) can help everyone process and reset a bit. Putting this advice into practice made a huge difference, and I now try to apply it to any negative conversation. Aside from being good for the listener, it’s good for you, too. Because even if you aren’t arguing, you’re still depleting your energy (and probably starting to lose the thread of the conversation) when you vent for that long. So keep an eye on the clock, and remember: There’s a reason most therapy sessions are only fifty minutes long.

I’m realizing that so much of being a person in the world is believing that you’re the aberration—that everyone except you has it all figured out; that they all have access to something you don’t; that you’re broken and in need of fixing. But you’re not insufficient; you’re good. We’re all good.

Take an interest in the things your friend cares about, even if the topics aren’t exactly your cup of tea. Sure, Steven Universe fanfic might not be your thing, but if your friend brings it up, you can still say, “Confession: I’ve actually never watched Steven Universe! What’s it about?” Or “Oh, I don’t know much about writing fanfic! How did you get into it?” Or “I don’t know anything about Steven Universe, but holy shit—this fanfic forum drama you’re describing sounds wild! Please tell me everything.” You don’t have to be friends with people you don’t share any interests with or who relentlessly blather on about topics you couldn’t care less about, but learning about new topics from people you like is fun.

OMG it's my spouse lol

Pay attention to the weather in the city. This tip comes from my friend Gyan, an Australian living in the US, far from most of her closest friends. “The argument that talking about the weather is lazy or boring is to ignore the fact that the weather is something we all deal with literally every single day,” she says.

Do this witb Abi!

Not all friendships are forever friendships, and some friendships are helped a great deal by proximity or exposure or being at a certain life stage. It can be a bummer to realize that, and it might leave you thinking, Was this just a friendship of convenience? But I don’t think it necessarily means the friendship wasn’t real; it’s just that some friendships simply can’t overcome inconvenience, and you had no way of knowing this until one of you got a new job or moved away. Be grateful for the good things this friendship brought into your life, accept things as they are (instead of what you wish they could be), let go of your guilt, and put your precious time and energy into someone or something that makes you feel as good as that friend once did.

One of the definitions of “notice” is “to treat with attention,” which I love. It is a treat! It’s exuberant, joyful, generous curiosity, and it’s at the heart of showing up.

Borrow a cute idea from the Dutch and get a birthday calendar. Unlike a traditional calendar, a birthday calendar doesn’t have the days of the week on it so it can be used in perpetuity. The idea is that you write important dates on it and use it year after year. Apparently you’re supposed to hang it in your bathroom, but really, any spot in your home that you frequent is probably fine. (If you search Etsy for “perpetual calendar” or “birthday calendar,” you’ll find several options.)

!!!

If you’re never willing to have difficult conversations with people, you’re never going to be able to have authentic, meaningful relationships. Most of us recognize that vulnerability is necessary for true intimacy, but for some reason we don’t view being honest as a way of being vulnerable. But of course admitting you have a need is a form of vulnerability.

So often, in moments of conflict, we listen to disagree. Instead, aim to understand. If you need to ask questions, go ahead—but come from a place of curiosity, not defensiveness.

When we tell ourselves it’s OK to settle for toxic friendships, we aren’t giving friendships nearly enough credit. Of course our friends have the power to hurt us so deeply that we need to walk away; to say otherwise disregards the significance of these relationships. I didn’t realize until after my first friend breakup that the fact that this person was indeed so important and influential in my life was exactly why it was OK—and necessary—to end our friendship.

Listen: I feel you on wanting to present an itemized list of twenty years of disagreements here.

Lol I see you, Hamilton reference.

Occasionally, we’ll get to make a grand gesture that illuminates several bulbs at once, but for the most part, showing up is done one small, quiet act by small, quiet act.